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1 — At a Glance
Hikal supplies active ingredients and intermediates to pharmaceutical and crop protection companies. Consolidated revenue for the three months to June 2026 was ₹403 crore. That was 5.9% higher than in the same quarter a year earlier. Operating profit was ₹37 crore, against ₹25.1 crore a year earlier. The bottom line was a loss of ₹7.4 crore, against a loss of ₹22.4 crore.
The quarter also carried an exceptional item pointing the unusual way. An exceptional item is a one-off gain or cost shown apart from normal trading. This one was ₹9 crore of income. The company says it reversed excess provision booked earlier for the new labour codes, after restructuring salary components. A year earlier the exceptional line ran the other way, at ₹85 crore of charges. Those covered the labour-code provision and an impairment of ₹47 crore at Panoli.
Pharmaceuticals did ₹233 crore of revenue, with earnings before interest and tax of ₹8 crore. Crop Protection did ₹170 crore, with earnings before interest and tax of minus ₹6 crore. Management attributes the crop margin hit to roughly ₹7-8 crore of raw-material cost increases inside the quarter. Management links those increases to geopolitical developments across input costs.
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning letter to the Jigani site in August 2025. The company’s own filing states that this has affected Pharma segment sales for the periods presented. Management describes remediation as being at the penultimate stage, with reinspection expected during the current financial year. Capital spending in the quarter ran about ₹45 crore. The company directed it at regulatory upgrades, new capacity and debottlenecking, which means clearing a plant’s slowest step.
2 — Introduction
Hikal was incorporated in July 1988 as Hikal Chemicals Industries Private Limited. The Hiremath family founded it alongside Surajmukhi Investments & Finance Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Kalyani Steels. The company listed in 1995 and took its present name in 2000. Thirty-eight years later it supplies research services, active ingredients and intermediates. Those go into pharmaceuticals, crop protection and specialty chemicals.
The recent chronology is dense. In February 2025 the US Food and Drug Administration inspected the Jigani site in Bengaluru over five days. The inspection closed with six observations. On 21 May 2025 the site was classified Official Action Indicated. The agency issued a warning letter on 21 August 2025. It cited inadequate investigation of customer complaints relating to foreign matter, and gaps in vendor management. Hikal responded on 11 September 2025, stating that several corrective actions were already implemented.
Separately, in December 2025, the company disclosed irregularities and alterations in supporting documentation. These sat primarily around revenue recognition. Sales had been increased by roughly ₹80 crore across the quarters to March and June 2025. The company reversed ₹80.7 crore in the three months to September 2025. It stated that the suspected misconduct involved certain employees across sales and marketing, logistics and allied functions. On 27 May 2026 the company disclosed that its fraud review showed no financial impact. It said the employees had been relieved, and announced Ravi Khadabadi as President for Crop Protection.
ICRA, a credit-rating agency, cut the long-term rating from A+ to A on 24 November 2025. It cut the short-term rating from A1 to A2+ the same day. ICRA cited the Official Action Indicated classification and the warning letter. Its February 2026 action kept both ratings where they were, with a stable outlook, while resizing the facility limits.
The quarter brought one other award. Hikal took an EcoVadis Gold rating, scoring 84 out of 100. That places it in the top 5% of more than 175,000 assessed companies.
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3 — Business Model: WTF Do They Even Do?
Hikal makes the molecules that go inside other people’s branded boxes. Nobody buys a Hikal-branded anything. It supplies active pharmaceutical ingredients, the part of a medicine that does the work, plus intermediates and advanced intermediates. Those go to pharmaceutical companies. It also supplies active ingredients and custom-made chemistry to the large crop protection firms.
The physical footprint is five manufacturing facilities across three states. Those hold 24 production blocks and more than 3,000 employees. Pharmaceuticals runs Jigani Unit 1 and Unit 2 in Karnataka, plus Panoli in Gujarat. Together they carry 1,600 cubic metres of reactor capacity. Crop Protection runs Taloja and Mahad in Maharashtra, plus its own block at Panoli, totalling 2,500 cubic metres. The Panoli site was bought from Novartis in 2000. It is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for finished ingredients and the starting materials they are built from. ICRA, a credit-rating agency, calls Taloja the only fully integrated plant in the world producing Thiabendazole, a fungicide. On that description, world supply of the fungicide runs through one address in Raigad district.
In the year to March 2026, pharmaceuticals brought 60% of revenue. Crop protection brought the other 40%. Within pharma, contract development and manufacturing for clients was 52% and own products 48%.
